The very last thing 17-year-old Emmott Syddall wants is to turn out like her dad. She’s descended from ten generations who never left their dull English village, and there’s no way she’s going to waste a perfectly good life that way. She’s moving to London and she swears she is never coming back.

But when the unexplained deaths of her neighbors force the government to quarantine the village, Em learns what it truly means to be trapped. Now, she must choose. Will she pursue her desire for freedom, at all costs, or do what’s best for the people she loves: her dad, her best friend Deb, and, to her surprise, the mysterious man in the HAZMAT suit?

Inspired by the historical story of the plague village of Eyam, this contemporary tale of friendship, community, and impossible love weaves the horrors of recent news headlines with the intimate details of how it feels to become an adult—and fall in love—in the midst of tragedy.

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I can’t wait to share Emmott’s story with you and introduce you to the fictional people of the very real village of Eyam.

To celebrate, I’ve put together a special gift box with a signed copy of The Smallest Thing and some surprise gifts. To enter the giveaway, come with me on my blog tour as I talk to authors and book bloggers, answer their prying questions about everything from travel to chocolate, and dish up some behind-the-scenes tidbits about The Smallest Thing.

Last month, I received a special gift. A Strange Companion was the June selection for Once Upon a Book Club and I received my very own gift box.

Once Upon a Book Club is one of the most creative book crates I’ve seen out there. Each month’s box contains a copy of the selected book, a quote print from the story, and four wrapped gifts to be opened at specified pages in the book.

Each gift is directly related to the story, adding a new dimension and bringing the story to life. I couldn’t wait to open mine to find out what gifts they’d come up with. (If you happen to be in the middle of reading A Strange Companion and don’t want any spoilers, you might want stop reading this post until you’re done.)

Page 11: Kat meets Owen

In Chapter Two, Kat has her first awkward interaction with Owen. As they try to silently introduce themselves from their respective windows, Kat opens her notebook and draws a picture of a cat, flipping over the page to explain that her name is spelled with a K.

The page 11 gift was a handy little notebook, and when I opened the cover, there was Kat’s hand-drawn cat face. I loved this little extra touch.

Page 99: The BFD

You have to read all the way to page 99 before you can open the next gift. The wrapping on this gift was my favorite—a small box tied with colored pompoms that match the cover of the book. I couldn’t wait to see what was inside.

In Chapter Eleven, Kat’s brother and his family arrive for the Big Family Dinner and Kat’s mother, pretending to be annoyed, but really loving Jon’s attention, swats him with a tea towel. The gift inside the box was a bright-colored tea towel, with a very appropriate print that says, “Hello Sunshine.” Sunshine, of course, was Gabe’s pet name for Kat and it plays an important role in the story. This was a really fun, and useful, gift.

Page 190: “It’s just a game.”

As I was trying to imagine what objects from the story might become gifts, there was one I was pretty confident wouldn’t be included, and that’s the Ouija board Kat experiments with in Chapter Twenty. So, when I opened my gift for page 190, I was surprised and delighted to discover a very creative alternative, an Ouija board mouse pad! I haven’t decided yet if I’ll actually use it, in case it spells out an ominous message as I move my mouse around.

Page 190: Kat’s gift to her brother

By the very end of the book, Kat has a lot of making up to do for her bad behavior. In Chapter Thirty, she visits her brother to apologize and to take the gift that she had bought for him all the way back in Chapter Four when Mai first arrives. The picture I described is of “two trees on a silver background, their branches intertwined to create a single canopy of small red hearts where there would have been leaves. Underneath, in Chinese characters translated to English was a single word: Family.”

I had imagined this picture and chosen symbolism that was important for what Kat needed to acknowledge in the story, so I couldn’t believe it when I opened the final gift and found a framed print of the picture almost exactly as I had imagined in. Of all the gifts, I think this was the one that touched me the most.

I wasn’t the only one in my household to enjoy my subscription box. Felicity got her own bonus gift, which I can report, she thoroughly enjoyed.

It was such an honor to have my book selected for the box. I really enjoyed discovering my gifts and I also got to watch subscribers post their pictures of A Strange Companion and their gifts on Once Upon a Book Club’s Instagram feed (@onceuponabookclubbox).

You can find out more about Once Upon a Book Club at the website. And if you’d like your own A Strange Companion Gift Box or want to try one of their upcoming boxes, you can use the code LISA10 for a 10% discount.

It’s the story of Em, a young woman on the brink of embarking on her new life, who finds herself trapped in a dull English village by a government-imposed quarantine. It’s a story of “self-sacrifice, the power of human touch, and the need to act in the face of horror,” writes Catherine Linka, author of A Girl Called Fearless, who was kind enough to do an early review of the book.

And if you’d like to join me to celebrate the book’s release, I’m throwing a Publication Party at {pages}: a bookstore in Manhattan Beach on Tuesday, July 18th at 7pm. I’ll be signing, reading, and—most likely—eating cake. Hope to see you there.

I’m very pleased to be able to share with you the cover of my next book, The Smallest Thing.

It’s the story of Em, a 17-year-old girl on the brink of escaping her dull English village, who finds herself trapped there by a government-imposed quarantine. You can find out more about the book here and read about the real-life village that inspired the story.

I’m so excited about this cover. It’s absolutely perfect for the story. It hints at the mystery, the possibility of romance, the darkness of the story, and the hint of hope. It captures the feel of Em’s idyllic (i.e. boring) village and gives a wonderful teaser about the mysterious man in the HAZMAT suit.

The Smallest Thing is out July 18th. I can’t wait to share more about the book with you soon.

This week I’m very pleased to welcome Farah Oomerbhoy to the blog. Farah is celebrating the publication of the second book in The Avalonia Chronicles series. The Rise of the Dawnstar is out today. I chatted with her about family, inspiration, and writing heroic female characters.

1. Avalonia was inspired by a tapestry that hung on your grandmother’s wall, and themes of family and belonging run through your books. How has your own experience with family shaped your stories?

That’s a very good question. I didn’t think anyone has ever asked me that before. 🙂

All authors draw from life experiences to form the basis of a story. But after a character starts coming to life everything changes. My books are no different; influences from my childhood and family life do tend to find their way into my work. But eventually, the characters and the story find their own path.

As a child, I had an almost perfect life, until the day my parents divorced and my father married again. I was seven years old.

I had always lived in a big joint family, with my parents, brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. But when my father left I started to realize that life was not always fair.

In a way, Aurora’s life at the very beginning mirrors that feeling of having a charmed life, until the day you realize that nothing will ever be the same again.

When I first imagined Aurora, I started to question what life would be like without the support of a close-knit family unit. How would a person cope, what would they become, would they be strong enough to survive on their own.

Writing Aurora’s story is a way of exploring these questions.

Her journey is not only one of external discovery but an internal struggle to find a sense of belonging, of self-worth. To find the happiness that was wrenched away from her at a very young age. The family that she is reunited with through the book, Aunt Serena, Uncle Gabriel, Erien, her grandmother, etc. are all parts of her once perfect life that she is trying to piece together again.

Aurora learns through trials and mistakes that life is not always fair, but you don’t have to do it on your own. Even a hero can ask for help sometimes. No one is perfect and if you have family and people who care about you, it gives you a strength that you never thought was possible.

All her life she thought she was alone, that no one really cared about her until she comes to Avalonia and realizes the importance of family and duty and finds a sense of belonging she never had before.

2. You wrote in an interview once that you loved fantasy stories, such as The Lord of the Rings, as a child, but would be frustrated that the girls never got to do anything. How did you balance writing a strong, heroic female character like Aurora with maintaining her femininity?

It was hard at first achieving this balance. I wanted my main character to be one whom young teenage girls could relate to. But at the same time I wanted her to be strong-willed, capable, and someone whom they could look up to as well.

Even though Aurora may have magical powers and trains to be a warrior; her likes and dislikes, her naiveté at times and even her infatuation with Rafe, reminds us that she is still, in essence, an ordinary sixteen-year-old girl. She ends up making mistakes and gets into trouble just like a regular teenage girl would. She didn’t grow up as a warrior so her feminine side is quite ingrained in her character.

I wanted readers to see that to be a hero and a warrior, a girl doesn’t have to dress up as a man or give up who she really is inside. She is perfectly capable of being feminine and a hero at the same time.

3. The Rise of the Dawnstar is the second book in your Avalonia Chronicles. When you wrote The Last of the Firedrakes, did you know it would be the first book in a series or was it originally just a stand-alone story you were burning to tell?

When I first imagined Avalonia I did not think I could even write one book, let alone a whole series, but I decided to give it a try.

At first, it was just a standalone book, called Aurora Firedrake. Until I realized that Aurora’s story would take a while to tell. So once I was halfway through The Last of the Firedrakes, I decided this would be a trilogy, and I named it The Avalonia Chronicles.

4. How are you like Aurora? How are you not at all like her?

Aurora could be a sixteen-year-old version of myself, but at the same time, she is not me.

One of the main concepts of the story is that Aurora could be anyone; that at any point in time it could be you who could open a cupboard, enter a library, or step into a tapestry and be transported to a magical world.

Aurora is an ordinary girl trying to make sense of an extraordinary life. She’s the girl next door, someone you wouldn’t believe could ever be a princess or a warrior.

Everyone has within them the potential for greatness, but it is the choices we make and the standards we live by that shape our character and help us grow into our true abilities.

That is what makes an ordinary person a queen.

5. Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?

Book 3 😉

The Rise of the Dawnstar,
book two of The Avalonia Chronicles.

Aurora Firedrake returns in the spellbinding sequel to The Last of the Firedrakes.

The seven kingdoms of Avalonia are crumbling and evil is spreading across the land like a plague. Queen Morgana is close to finding a way to open The Book of Abraxas and it’s only a matter of time until she uses the power trapped inside its pages to enslave the entire world.

The seven kingdoms of Avalonia are crumbling and evil is spreading across the land like a plague. Queen Morgana is close to finding a way to open The Book of Abraxas and it’s only a matter of time until she uses the power trapped inside its pages to enslave the entire world.

With Avalonia growing more dangerous by the day, Aurora must travel through war-torn lands and deep into the heart of the fae kingdom of Elfi. Her goal is to find a legendary weapon infused with the last of the realm’s ancient magic—the only weapon in the world powerful enough to stop the queen.

Aurora might have survived her first battle against Morgana, but the true fight to save her kingdom and restore her throne has only just begun…

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About the Author

Farah Oomerbhoy is the international bestselling author of The Avalonia Chronicles. Her first book, The Last of the Firedrakes, was originally published on Wattpad where it gained over two million reads and a Watty Award. Since publication, her debut has gone on to win a silver medal in IBPA’s Benjamin Franklin Awards and the Readers’ Favorite Book Awards, along with winning a finalist placement in the USA Best Book Awards. Farah loves the fantastical and magical and often dreams of living in Narnia, Neverland, or the Enchanted Forest. With a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Mumbai, Farah spends her creative time crafting magical worlds for young adults. She lives with her family in Mumbai, India.

Giveaway!

For each stop on tour, there will be a special number at the end of the post. Collect all the numbers, add them up, and enter to win one of three prizes! Once you have all the numbers you can enter the giveaway here: http://farahoomerbhoy.com/rise-dawnstar-now/